Israel has accused Iran of being behind three blasts in Bangkok that injured five people and blew off the legs of the alleged bomber - an Iranian national who was fleeing police when the grenade slipped through his hands and detonated next to him.

The blasts came just a day after bombs targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia, and has again escalated tensions between the two countries.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Maybe I'm dreaming, but one might hope that the governments of these two nations, however demented they may seem, are actually responsible enough to avoid a useless conflagration, and will seek to satisfy their more inflammable constituents with relatively minor sniping.

Ahmed Abdo was still asleep in his hut at the gate of the Aqua-Sun beach resort on Egypt's Red Sea coast when 20 masked men carrying guns burst in.

Abdo, 30, and his two colleagues were tied up, their mobile phones taken. The intruders, members of the Bedouin Tarabeen tribe, demanded money - 4m Egyptian pounds (£420,000) - from the owner in compensation for the land on which the resort was built. It belonged, they said, to the Tarabeen.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The Libyan capital, Tripoli, is tense this week as the country prepares to mark the anniversary of its 17 February revolution, amid claims by a son of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi that an uprising is imminent.

Leaders of China and the European Union (EU) on Tuesday underscored the importance of beefing up economic and trade cooperation in the context of the stagnant world economy.

The call came from the 14th China-EU summit in Beijing, which was attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

"It is currently the most urgent task for China and the EU to enhance economic and trade cooperation," Wen said at a press conference after the summit, during which he raised a five-point proposal to the EU side in this respect.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Syria's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday totally rejected the report by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), regarding it as "new allegations."

"The HRC has turned into a tool in the hands of the countries that are targeting Syria and ignoring the terrorist acts carried out by the armed groups," the ministry said in a statement carried by state-run SANA news agency.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

President Barack Obama assured China's heir apparent leader that the United States welcomes Beijing's rise in the world, saying Tuesday that strong cooperation between the two powers is good for the rest of the world.

Obama offered a warm welcome to Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping amid sharp policy differences over Syria, Iran and economic issues, as well as longstanding U.S. concerns over Chinese human rights practices.

Obama aides said those issues would be on the table during Xi's unusually long and high-level visit to the United States, but there was no sign of discord during a brief joint appearance between Obama and Xi following their first-ever meeting.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.